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Old 01-05-22, 09:44 PM   #1
John Pancoast
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Default New pc advice needed

Disclaimer: I used to build my own rigs back in the dos through win98 days but don't know a thing about specs since then.


Looking for a moderately priced rig. Not the best, not the worst performer.
Laptop preferred. I know; but I like the flexibility it provides.
But desktop advice would be appreciated too. OS ability to run DosBox is must.



Game interests: SH series, especially 3. Maybe get back into racing/flight sims too.


Anyway, any tips appreciated !
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Old 01-05-22, 10:10 PM   #2
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It would be hard to out perform the Intel I3, I5 and I7 series. They are reasonably priced as they have been out for a while. I have seen I3 and I5 Intel units ( laptops ) for $ 100-150 dollars.

I have a Dell 17 inch laptop that was purchased new for about $ 500 dollars about 4-5 years ago. It came equipped with a quad core A8-7410 AMD CPU with an integrated video section and a 2 Tera byte hard drive and 16gb of Ram. It performs well and has a TDP of 15. It runs windows 10 which I don't like. Out of curiosity, I loaded SH3 with GWX and it performs well with enough frames per second to pass muster.

I think you will do well with this setup. I was given an " all in one " Dell 24 inch or so computer. It also has a touch screen. I replaced the hard drive in it. All in one computers use a laptop motherboard and this model had the A8-7410 AMD CPU. The computer has a 500gb SSD loaded with Windows 7 and is very fast. Silent Hunter works well on it too.

Just some thoughts I wanted to share. Good luck, John.
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Old 01-05-22, 11:37 PM   #3
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Hi i live in uk i bought a gaming rig last year i didnt get it from PC World or a off the shelf prebuilt system because it may have a adiquate GPU (good enough for now)but the upgrade options are limited.
With out going overboard mother board as only two dim slots for ram and it as 2 x 4gig memory dims also the PSU 450/500 watts so your upgrade options are limited yes you can buy two new 8gig dims but if you wanted 4x8 gig dims later on you would need a new mother board with 4 dim slots.
Your pc case has to have good airflow you dont want to cook your brand new components.

Also the case may have only 2 spare expansion slots for your new gpu so later on down the road 2/4 years from now and you want to upgrade your Gpu to a 3 slot one you then have to get a new case and you will need a new PSU to power your new GPU.
Buying the parts that you want in your new rig and a good case with lots of room for upgrades thats going to run tripple A rated games so its as future proof as your buget will allow if you can aford $750 then i would stretch it to $1000-$1250 you will get more bang for your buck and build it your self then its a labour of love if you can.
With new cpu's and gpu's coming out in 2022 there be a lot of last years kit being sold off you could pick up some nice bargains as the shops like best buy have a sale to clear space for all the new kit coming.
Now is the time to do the spade work decide our budget pick your components then watch reviews of them on youtube to seperate the wheat from the chaff so to speak so then you know your getting the best bang for your $ buck John.


I have never built a pc and i was scared of trying what if i mess it up so i went to a small local computer shop in Sildon five miles up the road and i picked the parts and they built it for me i wanted a nvidia 3080 but they were hard to get hold of then they shop phoned me and said he can get hold of a Radion Tiachi 6800 thats retails at £1150 with 16 gig ram me

my rig cost me £1600 with £400 trade in on my old i7 2nd gen rig

my Gaming Pc spec

Ryzen 3800x
Steel lelgend B450 M/B
ADATA XPG RAM 4X 8GIG

M2 SAT 1TB
CORSAIR 1TB HD
ANTEC 240 MM WATER COOLER

ASRock Radeon RX 6800 XT Taichi X 16GB OC GPU
XPG Battle cruiser case.
3 fans at the front 2 fans in the roof
1 fan at the rear
3 fans on GPU
you can see the 1"gap behind the glass panel and the triangle cut outs on the case frame that all help the airflow keeping everything nice and cool even under load.







Laptop Lenovo I5 Jarods tech review new 2022 Laptops on the horizon so once again they'll be bagains out there.

Last edited by blackswan40; 02-11-22 at 06:46 AM.
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Old 01-06-22, 12:53 AM   #4
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I build my own Desktops but here is an affordable Gaming Laptop (the Legion7) and has many great features and not much on the bloatware to clean out, which is always a good thing. I have a Legion5 and have OneAlex1.52 rock'n it. Great support too. The only downside was the fact the max memory supported is 16gb. So I tried 32gb anyway. No problems there if more memory is needed. Oh yea, no CD Drive either, but I have an external CD Drive for the few times I need one. Don't know if you have a Micro Center around you, but at least you can read the specs and reviews and go from there. Hope this helps in your choice, if a gaming Laptop is in your future. If you have questions, please PM me. Jerry (Baltimore Md.)/ Doolar (CA45)

https://www.microcenter.com/product/...-computer-blue opps, sorry, this is for the Legion5. I didn't know they were still in stock. The Legion7 is an upgrade, but its $1700

https://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-Legion...10305265&psc=1 Not a big fan of the 15" monitor
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Last edited by Doolar; 01-06-22 at 02:00 AM.
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Old 01-06-22, 01:34 AM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by John Pancoast View Post
Laptop preferred. I know; but I like the flexibility it provides.
But desktop advice would be appreciated too. OS ability to run DosBox is must.

Game interests: SH series, especially 3. Maybe get back into racing/flight sims too.
The good news is the old game has changed a bit.
You don't need a ton of boutique hardware to get good frame rates and smooth gaming.

The bad news is that you're stuck buying your gear at a bad time. A lot is going to depend on what you'll be able to find.

With all of that in mind, the first thing to concentrate on is CPU CLOCK SPEED. A stock-clocked CPU running close to 4 GHz is what you're looking for. Cores really don't mean squat if you're playing games coded to run on a single core.

Here's another shocker- if you wind up going the desktop route, DON'T SWEAT THE GPU/VIDEO CARD. In most cases, in a modern rig, you don't even NEED a separate GPU to play older games. If anything, match your GPU to your monitor.

All of that gives you some power when it comes to buying a new rig.
Check the on-line stores (AMZ, New Egg, etc.) to see what they have available. Look for pre-built BACK TO SCHOOL and Biz (bargain) specials. Pay attention to the CPU clock speed. You might be amazed at what's being sold as a bargain rig.

As an example, I bought a "bare bones" pre-built desktop almost five years ago. The CPU is an i3 stock clocked at 3.95 GHz. My video card is an ultra cheap ($40) fanless unit that I bought because it gave better display options.
All I've done to this rig is throw an additional 8 Gigs of RAM at it and change the CPU battery.

I play games like Dangerous Waters and Flight Sim 2002 and 2004. On FS, I have the games set to run at 60Hz and they do just fine.
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Old 01-06-22, 04:43 AM   #6
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Thanks all ! I should add, I have no interest in building my own anymore.
So a pre-built would be the ticket.
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Old 01-06-22, 07:19 AM   #7
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Well, like I mentioned earlier, if you go with the desktop option start with the monitor and then build your system based on that.

Do you need a six foot wide screen if you're only sitting 2 1/2 feet away from it? Are you stuck between deciding on an 8K or a 4K monitor when all you really need is 1920X1080 ?

Is VR in your future or do you get dizzy easily?

Your monitor drives what kind of GPU you'll need which will also drive your choice in a power supply and also what kind of mother board you'll need while also driving the type of case you'll need to keep everything cool and quiet. See how fast it can spiral out of control?
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Old 01-06-22, 02:02 PM   #8
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Sounds good, thanks. What about these 2 into 1 pcs; worth considering or stay away from ?
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Old 01-06-22, 05:34 PM   #9
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Oops; instead of 2 in 1 I meant the All in One desktops.
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Old 01-06-22, 07:35 PM   #10
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cool Shellin' out Shekels in Shildon

Quote:
Originally Posted by Blackswan40
so i went to a small local computer shop in Sildon five miles up the road and i picked the parts
"Attention Shildon computer Shoppers we've a blue light special on isle 6! " But I'll certainly run the components list: Ryzen 3800x
Steel lelgend B450 M/B
ADATA XPG RAM 4X 8GIG

M2 SAT 1TB
CORSAIR 1TB HD
ANTEC 240 MM WATER COOLER

ASRock Radeon RX 6800 XT Taichi X 16GB OC GPU
XPG Battle cruiser case.
3 fans at the front 2 fans in the roof
1 fan at the rear
3 fans on GPU past my computer shop guy to see what he'll charge me!
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Old 01-07-22, 01:32 AM   #11
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Quote:
Originally Posted by John Pancoast View Post
Oops; instead of 2 in 1 I meant the All in One desktops.
It depends on what they bundle into the box.

Again, start with the monitor. Is it what you need vs what you'd want?
You'll be staring at the monitor whenever the system is on, so think this through. There are all sorts of combo deals out there, just realize that if you go the desktop route you can always upgrade your pieces later on. If they gave you a crappy keyboard or mouse, just buy some better stuff to replace them.

Next, find a CPU that clocks somewhere between 3.5 to 4.5 GHz. Your CPU is the core to playing smooth games.

One thing I skipped over, your OS. If you can swing it ( there isn't a huge difference in price) go with a 64 bit OS (usually Win10) instead of a 32 bit OS.
If you play memory intensive games (flight sims) you'll appreciate that extra breathing room.

All-in-ones used to have issues with pre-loaded bloatware. All sorts of crap you didn't want. Either get ready to spend a night deleting all the hoo-hah or keep looking. On my "budget/school" PC, it didn't have any bloatware installed. I guess the reason was that if it was bought for a work environment, either you or the IT guy would be loading software, anyway. Or it was for school/college which required their own special programs.

Anyway, check prices and availability. At the end of the day, you'll be one who has to live with what you bought.

One last thing to not worry about, your hard drive and/or SSD. Hard drives are cheap, super cheap now-a-days. A 1 TB (Terabyte) hard drive will set you back to the tune of..........30 dollars!

Do you need a terabyte of storage? Who knows, who cares, its dirt cheap.

Last edited by ET2SN; 01-07-22 at 01:55 AM.
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Old 01-07-22, 04:57 AM   #12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by John Pancoast View Post
Disclaimer: I used to build my own rigs back in the dos through win98 days but don't know a thing about specs since then.

Looking for a moderately priced rig. Not the best, not the worst performer.
Laptop preferred. I know; but I like the flexibility it provides.

But desktop advice would be appreciated too. OS ability to run DosBox is must.

Game interests: SH series, especially 3. Maybe get back into racing/flight sims too.

Anyway, any tips appreciated !
*There has never been a worse time to buy Computer hardware with bloated pricing lack of availability and hoards of scalpers ripping of the unwary due to the silicon shortage. Prebuilds negate that problem to a degree


* Do your research then do it again building a PC if anything is much easier than of old. The Choice between Intel and AMD Based systems is much closer than it used to be. Across the whole range AMD have the edge for multi tasking they are a no brainer research that too

* Laptops offer portability but not necessarily flexibility upgrading a desktop is much easier

Quote : But desktop advice would be appreciated too. OS ability to run DosBox is must.

* Most systems come with windows 10 which will run DosBox the hardware requirements are minimal as it only needs a 1.0ghz CPU. Go for a Desktop unless its an absolute must. You may need some legacy software for DosBox but I'm not an expert on that matter you need to research it

Even budget CPUs a decent enough these days but it can be more difficult to compare with some prebuilds as they sometimes use bespoke parts.

Make sure the Graphics card dedicated or otherwise meets your requirements from what you say even a budget GPU will be enough but racing/flight sims are far more demanding check the System requirements for the things you may be interested in the future do some research

* The most important thing you need to do as you probably may guess by now is to do some research it may come and bite you in the ass if you don't. Advice on forums although well intentioned can sometimes be misleading so now you now know how to deal with that.

Simon

Intel i5 10600k OC @ 5.2GHz
Zotac RTX 3080 GPU 10GB GDDR 6 VRAM
Asus Strix Z490f Motherboard
NZXT Kraken AIO Water Cooled
32GB (4x8) HyperX Fury RGB DDR 4 RAM
EVGA 650GS 80+ Gold Power Supply ( only just Adequate need upgrade)
Samsung M.2 Nvme SSD 1 TB
Crucial M.2 Sata SSD 2 TB
HyperX 2.5" 500GB SSD
Crucial 2,5" 500GB SSD
Western Digital x2 (2TB + 3TB) HDD
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Old 01-07-22, 08:58 AM   #13
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When two weeks ago I had to repalce my VR headset, I checked, just to know, gfx cards as well. I was SHOCKED to see the prices. Thats due to bitcoin mining - plenty of tech and power investement to actually calculate algorithms by which then you "produce" practically NOTHING - that has emptied the market of nVdia boards. 2017 I bought a computer, that costed me around 3300 of which 1000 went off for the gfx card. Today that money would pay just the gfx card of modern generation and capable for latest VR - the price for the remainign PC adds to it.


This is the worst time needing to buy a PC and especially a gfx card that i have ever seen in all my life. The prices for high end systems are beyond good and evil.
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Old 01-07-22, 09:38 AM   #14
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Thanks all for the great advice ! I really appreciate it.
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